In Part One of an exclusive interview for Zero Hanger, Collingwood great Peter McKenna looks back on his incredible life on and off the field, as he turns 80 years old today.
McKenna was an eight-time leading goal-kicker at the Pies, slotting 838 majors in 180 games in the black and white.
He won a Copeland Trophy (1970), two Coleman Medals (1972 and 1973) and an All-Australian blazer (1972).
McKenna was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 1999.
Howard Kotton: Happy birthday, Peter. How do you feel on reaching your 80th birthday?
Peter McKenna: To be quite honest, I'm very happy to reach 80 because so many of my friends have passed away around the age of 60. I was just saying the other day, it's amazing how the years go by.
Sir Donald Bradman and your great Collingwood teammate and Brownlow medallist Len Thompson shared the same birthdate (August 27).
I was really excited as a little boy to have the same birthday as Australia's greatest sportsman; it was just sensational. Len was one year younger than me, so he would've been turning 79 if he was alive today - he died aged 60 in 2007.
We used to ring each other on our birthdays every year, and we tried to beat each other to be the first to deliver birthday wishes. Len was a great bloke, and we were so happy to share our birthdays.
How are you planning to celebrate the milestone?
I implored my wife not to put on too big of a surprise - I didn't want any fuss and bother. I'm just going out with our family to a restaurant in Preston - that's all, and nothing fancy. It's just lovely to share it with your grandchildren, daughters, and my wife. But I'm sure there will be a few phone calls from friends.
Let's go back to the beginning. You grew up in West Heidelberg, and one of your best friends in those early days was Ross ‘Twiggy' Dunne, who became a teammate of yours at Collingwood.
There were three of us growing up in the same little area who ended up at Collingwood. There was Ricky Watt, who was a champion schoolboy footballer and played his first game for Collingwood aged 15. Ricky lived just around the corner, and ‘Twiggy' was around the other corner. We grew up near a soccer ground in West Heidelberg, and we would often go and kick the footy together. I was the only one to play soccer, playing for five years before I took up Aussie Rules.
You barracked for Essendon as a kid, and idolised John Coleman.
He was a big name when I was a little kid. In the late 1950s and early '60s, I idolised all of the great Essendon players such as Ian ‘Bluey' Shelton, Ken Fraser, Ron Evans, and Johnny Birt. I ended up playing against most of them and got to know nearly all of them in my lifetime as a player and commentator. It was such a thrill to get to know them, having idolised them as a youngster.
You also love cricket, and were a great mate of former Australian vice-captain, Keith Stackpole.
I played two games for Ivanhoe in the seniors. I was an average cricketer who could bat and bowl. I certainly wasn't a star and played with two former Carlton District players, Ray Wake and Tommy Trembath, who were very good cricketers.
In one game I played at Oakleigh and had to face a Test cricketer who had taken a hat-trick, left-arm wrist spinner, Lindsay Kline. I tried to hit him out of the ground and was caught on the fence for a few runs. ‘Stacky' was a great friend, and we would ring and text each other all the time. I would want to talk cricket, and he wanted to talk football. We were great mates, and I still miss him. And I'm friendly with his boys Peter and Tony.
You were recruited to Collingwood from West Heidelberg YCW.
Mick Erwin was probably the best footballer at West Heidelberg YCW, and Fitzroy's Johnny Murphy and Collingwood's Shane Bond also played there. YCW was a very strong club. Before I came to Collingwood, Mick coached us in under 17s, and we had a great team. When I arrived at Collingwood in 1965, Mick was still there, and then he went to play for Richmond that year. He was a terrific coach.
You made your senior debut for Collingwood in the opening round of 1965.
I played against St Kilda, and it was the first time that the Saints had played their home games at Moorabbin, so that's a little statistic that I'll remember for the rest of my life.
I went to Collingwood thinking I would play in the seconds or thirds, but I had a good practice series, and they put me in the seniors straight away, which was a bit of a shock. I played at centre half-forward, but I wasn't quite ready.
The 1966 season started well for you with a 12-goal haul against Hawthorn in the opening round, and then you were dropped soon after. Collingwood played in the Grand Final, and you missed out.
I was playing in a midweek competition with Coburg Teachers College, and we played against other teachers' colleges. There were other League footballers, including Bob Keddie, Peter Crimmins, and Bryan Quirk, who also played in that competition.
Our coach, Bobby Rose, who I adored, asked me to stop playing midweek, but I told him that as I was the college's sports secretary, I felt obliged to play. Bob told me I wouldn't be playing in the seniors unless I gave it up. So I played only the first six rounds in the seniors and played the remainder of the season in the seconds.
I played in the reserves Grand Final that year, and so did Barry Price. We were beaten in that Grand Final by Richmond with a kick after the siren by Royce Hart, who was eligible to play as the Tigers did not qualify for the seniors finals.
Later in life, Bobby apologised to Barry for leaving him out of the senior team in the Grand Final, which we lost to St Kilda by a point. He was a superstar.
You became a wonderful full-forward, topping the century of goals in three consecutive seasons. What was the reason for your success?
When I first went to Collingwood, I relied heavily on my overhead marking. But I changed my game around after the Richardson brothers, Wayne and Max, came across from Western Australia, and Barry Price arrived from Ararat.
They were three of the competition's best kicks, so I woke up very early that if you're relying on hanging around the goalsquare trying to take marks, you're not going to be successful. So I started to lead out a lot more and come up the ground.
I had a great understanding with the three of them, particularly with Pricey. He would know where I was going to run, and I knew where he was going to kick it without even looking.
Lou Richards would always tell me I wouldn't have got a kick if not for Barry Price, and we're always linked together. We had a great understanding, and he is one of the nicest people you could ever meet.
You were a magnificent drop punt kick for goal. Did you have a kicking coach, and what was your goalkicking technique?
As kids, we would practise kicking at the local soccer ground. I would practise kicking the ball low and hard at the bar above the soccer goalposts, so that's how I developed the ability to kick the drop punt low and hard. I was always a pretty good kick, so when I came into VFL football, I didn't get nervous kicking for goal.
I felt confident and would always kick for goal within 10 seconds - not like today when they hang around for 30 seconds, take out the mouthguard, and twiddle the ball around. It nearly drives me mad.
Guys such as Tony Lockett, Jason Dunstall, and Matthew Lloyd didn't muck around. They didn't twirl the ball around, and they were confident coming in to kick for goal.
You played on some of the toughest and best full-backs of all time.
Some of the toughest full-backs I played against were the best blokes to have a drink with after the game - St Kilda's Kevin ‘Cowboy' Neale, Carlton's Wes Lofts, and Melbourne's Ray Biffin, who sold me a car when he was working for Barry Bourke in Berwick.
But I found the quicker full-backs were harder to play on - Harvey Merrigan from Fitzroy, Carlton's Geoff Southby, Hawthorn's Kelvin Moore, Richmond's Barry Richardson, and North Melbourne's David Dench. They were all great players.
As a young bloke, I played on Tassie Johnson and Bernie Massey from Melbourne, and Geelong's Roy West.
Concussion is a big issue today; how many times were you concussed?
The worst one was in the 1970 Grand Final when ‘Tuddy' (Des Tuddenham) accidentally ran through me, and I had severe concussion. I shouldn't have been on the ground after half-time. I can't remember half-time or what I did after the game. I was going for a mark when ‘Tuddy' jumped, and his hip hit my head.
One day at Victoria Park, ‘Cowboy' Neale hit me pretty hard. In those days, you expected to be hit from behind by the full-backs when you were in front going for a mark.
Aside from the 1970 Grand Final defeat, the biggest disappointment of your career was being dropped for the 1973 preliminary final and replaced by Rene Kink.
That was the greatest disappointment ever. I had kicked 100 goals in three consecutive seasons, but in the last home-and-away game in 1972, Essendon's Darryl Gerlach collected me and gave me the worst corked thigh you could have, which forced me to miss the finals that year.
So we made the finals in 1973, and we were playing Carlton in the second semi-final at Waverley. I remember I was wearing a T-shirt to bed, and when I woke up on the Saturday morning, it was sopping wet, and I was shivering. I had the flu, and, stupidly, I played. As soon as I ran out, my legs were like dead weights. I kicked two goals playing on Geoff Southby, and we were well beaten. Afterwards I was in bed for two or three days.
We trained on Thursday night at the MCG, and coach Neil Mann told me to take it easy because they wanted to be right for the preliminary final against Richmond on Saturday. I went to bed that night thinking I was playing against the Tigers, as I had a pretty good record against them. I was in shock when I picked up the newspaper the next day and read I had been replaced by a 16-year-old kid. I couldn't believe it.
Kevin Bartlett said the Tigers were rejoicing because they used to worry about Barry Price kicking the ball to me, and they were so rapt that I was out. That was the end of the season for me. I was the leading goalkicker in the competition, but we lost the preliminary final. It took me a long time to get over that.
You suffered a severe kidney injury playing in the reserves at Collingwood in 1975 before playing in Tasmania in 1976.
I was in Devonport, and I got the urge to play League football again, so I came back to Melbourne in 1977.
I wanted to play for Collingwood again, trained all summer, and got myself very fit under Tom Hafey. Collingwood offered me $300 a game, and if I was dropped to the seconds, I'd be on $100. I said, ‘Why don't you just offer me $300, win, lose or draw?' and they refused. Carlton came and gave me a better offer, so I had no option but to go and play with the Blues.
In my first game with Carlton, I sat on the bench nearly the whole game under coach Ian Thorogood. I played 11 games and kicked 36 goals that season. Carlton was a great club, and several of their players have become lifelong friends of mine.
There were some great players, including ‘Jezza' (Alex Jesaulenko), (Trevor) Keogh, and (Mark) Maclure, but it was an awkward time. They had a side that was good enough to just about win the flag, but they didn't make the finals that year because the coaching wasn't that great.
You said you couldn't stand the thought of playing against Collingwood again, so you went off to play and coach in the VFA.
I had a two-year contract at Carlton, and I should've stayed, but I rang the club and told the Blues I found it too difficult to play against Collingwood - the supporters were so loyal to me.
If I'd known ‘Jezza' was going to become captain-coach, I probably would've stayed.
I was coaching Port Melbourne in the VFA and teaching at Marcellin College in 1978. One day when I was teaching, I received a phone call from Lou Richards, who had put my name up as a commentator for Channel 7. We were playing on a Sunday, and the VFL games were on Saturday. It began a wonderful association with Seven that lasted 20 years. Before that I'd been on Channel 9, and Collingwood made me give that up too, so I've had a chequered run.
Many young people may not know that you were the first host of Hey Hey It's Saturday with Daryl Somers. Why did you have to give that away?
I received a phone call from Norm Spencer, who produced the famous variety show In Melbourne Tonight with Graham Kennedy on Channel 9, and he told me they were doing a kids' show with cartoons on Saturday morning.
They wanted me to be co-compere with a young bloke who they thought had a fair bit of talent as a singer and drummer called Daryl Somers. That was towards the end of 1971, but the problem was I was on air at 8am until midday. I was also on Ted Whitten's football show on a Friday night on Nine.
In 1972, I played a shocker one day and got to training on Tuesday night, when coach Neil Mann told me the committee had met and decided I could stay on the Friday night show, but I had to give up the Saturday morning.
The week after I gave up Hey Hey It's Saturday, I kicked 11 goals straight against North Melbourne on David Dench, and that justified the decision in their eyes. I'm the only bloke ever who has been replaced by a stuffed ostrich, Ossie Ostrich, who was created and performed by that beautiful guy, Ernie Carroll, and they went on for about 29 years.
I was invited back to the reunion of Hey Hey It's Saturday, and it was a lot of fun. Ian ‘Molly' Meldrum was there with Ernie and Daryl.
You even became a singer. How did that come about?
I used to go to the dances at the Ivanhoe Town Hall, and there was a guy in the band named Colin Buckley, who was a pop singer at the time. He told me he had written a song called Things To Remember and wanted me to record it, so I did it. As a little boy, I was a soprano, but I wasn't a great singer.
When I started at Channel 9 as the co-compere of Hey Hey It's Saturday, I was asked to record another song called Smile All The While. That sold a few, and the loyal Collingwood supporters bought it. I sang it on a TV pop show called Happening 71 compered by Jeff Phillips.
In your heyday, you appeared at functions, clinics, talked at schools, kicked the footy to kids at school, and even went to a kid's birthday party on the eve of a big game.
I just thought it was all part of being a League footballer.
I won two cars for being the most popular player in the competition. I polled 200,000 votes, with many Collingwood supporters voting for me. I sold one of the cars to my Collingwood teammate Jeff Clifton for next to nothing. Jeff was a civil engineer who helped develop Marvel Stadium. He did really well in life and later on was driving a Mercedes, but, unfortunately, he died fairly young because of cancer.
You were accorded rock-star status with many Collingwood fans wearing number six on their backs. How did you cope with that?
I think I was pretty level-headed, but it was exciting. Collingwood supporters were so great to me, and they're so loyal. They love their players and think they're all stars.
All League footballers become a bit keen on themselves because so much fuss is made of you, but I think I controlled it pretty well.
Stay tuned to ZeroHanger.com for Part Two of this exclusive interview with Peter McKenna, reflecting on his favourite memories as a long-time commentator with Channel 7, and the greatest Collingwood players he has played with and seen.
